Abstract: The dropping accident of a shell container is a shock dynamical behavior, which has the characteristics of geometric and material nonlinearity. Thus, it is of great difficulty to design an accurate similitude model test. This paper aimed to use the theoretical analysis method to design the similitude model test of the dropping of shell container, get out the similar constant to the various physical quantities, and determine the corresponding similarity criteria, with no considerations of the effect of material rate effect. On this basis, the numerical simulation method was used to make calculations and evaluations of the different proportions of similitude model tests. The results show that the error of the similar constants is very small under certain assumptions and experimental design conditions, which well reflects the similarity of the model parameters. It is valid and effective to study the dropping accident of shell container by carrying out a similitude model experiment. The results can provide a theoretical analysis and numerical simulation reference to design the model test of the dropping accident of shell container.